23
May 09Comfort You
05.23.09 Portland, OR: 6:58 am. I am partly awake and partly asleep. I have been this way since about 5:30 am. Today is Saturday. I’ve had about 8 hrs. of sleep since Thursday and my head is in that special place. For the past hour or so, I have been staring out the open window beside the couch I am on. A crisp breeze is moving in from outside the window. There is a fantastic view of the sun rising from somewhere behind the Fremont Bridge, as the city quietly hums. Yesterday was perfect and I have a lot to say about it. More later.
7:07 pm. I am sitting at Stumptown coffee shop. They are playing an album by the great band White Magic and the coffee is great. This is a good place to be right now.
Yesterday, I got into town about 11:00 am. On-time. Early actually. Portland has a train that runs from the airport into the downtown area. This is a huge plus in my book, and a good sign of a good city. The train is clean and speaks in a pleasant female voice, announcing the stops and which sides the doors will open on: “Doors on my left.”
I met up with one of my hosts, Liam, and we walked a few blocks to get some food. Liam is also vegetarian, so that made things easy. We ended up getting what is called a “Whole Bowl” from one of the many street vendors in the area: rice, beans, tomatoes, avocado, olives…that sort of delicious thing. We stopped at Jamison Park to eat and meet up with Liam’s lady friend/housemate, Joanne, who just so happens to be vegan. Excellent. They were both very welcoming and we got along just fine. After we ate, we walked to their place so I could drop my bag off and get familiar with the area. We hung out and talked for awhile, and again, we got along very, very well. We have a lot in common and it made for some interesting conversation. It’s always good to meet people you get along well with, especially when you have plans to sleep at their place for a couple nights. I guess that goes without saying, but it can be very difficult for me much of the time. People are hard. These two individuals are not however, so I will just leave it at that. Good, good people. If either of you happen to read this, thank you again.
I eventually headed out on my own to wander the city. I went to the same coffee shop I’m sitting in now. Immediately afterward I went to Powell’s Books. Powell’s spans a full city block, has several rooms on several floors and an extensive collection of used, new and out-of-print books. It is extremely vast to say the least. You could spend days there. On this day however, I decided to call it quits after about 2 hours. I left with a couple books by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe that I paid less than $10.00 for. I wanted more but held back. I felt lame for not being able to navigate myself towards something more obscure and rare, as this would be the place to find it. I hope to get there eventually. In the meantime, I have a lot to learn.
Geographically, Portland is divided into 4 areas: NW, SW, NE and SE. The Burnside Bridge divides the North and South areas and the Willamette River divides the East and West. It is a big but walkable city, and it is extremely bike-friendly. There is also a street car if you are so inclined to go that route. Again, key elements to what is at least my notion of the perfect city. I spent the rest of the day walking the NW and SW areas, stopping off at various spots to read and think. The day and the air were beautiful and refreshing. I could not consume enough of either. As the sun set, I sat outside a coffee shop drinking tea and reading Black Spring by Henry Miller.
After a bit more nighttime wandering, I headed over to Deschutes Brewpub for one of those tasty Portland beers I’ve heard so much about. I sat Indian style at a table outside and drank their “Gluten-free Golden ESB” while I finished reading Broken Summers by Henry Rollins. It was one of those moments. I found myself deeply submerged in it, and it lasted long. There were several quotes I came across that hit me very hard. This is often the case when I read Rollins, but the combination of finishing the book on those particular passages, while being where, how and when I was left me staggering. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that, but if you are going to get it…well, then you’ve already got it.
To top the night off, I took out my iPod and listened to the Scout Niblett/Will Oldham cover of Van Morrison’s “Comfort You” several times over while staring out at the night sky. I had heard this version of the song many times before this trip, but it moved me like it never had before on my flight in earlier and I felt the need to listen again. I found myself holding back tears on both instances. It is such a beautiful song.
A great day. A perfect night.
Just before I left to walk back for the night, a girl holding a well-worn copy of a Nietzsche book, that I could not identify by name, approached me for some change. How could I say no to that? I couldn’t and I didn’t. I realized then that I needed go back to Powell’s today to pick up Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche and the copy of Rollins’ A Dull Roar: What I Did On My Summer Deracination 2006 that I had temporarily passed on earlier; I picked up both right before heading to the coffee shop that I am leaving right now. More later.